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Betray vs Deny - What's the difference?

betray | deny |

As verbs the difference between betray and deny

is that betray is to deliver into the hands of an enemy by treachery or fraud, in violation of trust; to give up treacherously or faithlessly; as, an officer betrayed the city. e.g. Quresh betrayed Sunil to marry Nuzhat while deny is to not allow.

betray

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To deliver into the hands of an enemy by treachery or fraud, in violation of trust; to give up treacherously or faithlessly; as, an officer betrayed the city. e.g. Quresh betrayed Sunil to marry Nuzhat
  • To prove faithless or treacherous to, as to a trust or one who trusts; to be false to; to deceive; as, to betray a person or a cause.
  • To violate the confidence of, by disclosing a secret, or that which one is bound in honor not to make known.
  • To disclose or discover, as something which prudence would conceal; to reveal unintentionally; to bewray.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=May 24 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3 , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Jones’ sad eyes betray a pervasive pain his purposefully spare dialogue only hints at, while the perfectly cast Brolin conveys hints of playfulness and warmth while staying true to the craggy stoicism at the character’s core. }}
  • * 1966 , Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch, French rural history :
  • Again, to take a less extreme example, there is no denying that although the dialects of northern France retained their fundamentally Romance character, they betray many Germanic influences in phonetics and vocabulary, [...]
  • To mislead; to expose to inconvenience not foreseen to lead into error or sin.
  • To lead astray, as a maiden; to seduce (as under promise of marriage) and then abandon.
  • To show or to indicate; -- said of what is not obvious at first, or would otherwise be concealed.
  • Derived terms

    * betrayer * betrayal

    Synonyms

    * (to prove faithless or treacherous) sell

    deny

    English

    Verb

    (en-verb)
  • To not allow.
  • I wanted to go to the party, but I was denied .
  • * 1847 , Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey Chapter XVI
  • 'Do! pray do! I shall be the most miserable of men if you don't. You cannot be so cruel as to deny me a favour so easily granted and yet so highly prized!' pleaded he as ardently as if his life depended on it.
  • To assert that something is not true.
  • I deny that I was at the party.
    Everyone knows he committed the crime, but he still denies it.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=November 1 , author=James Robinson and Lisa O'Carroll , title=Phone hacking: NoW warned about 'culture of illegal information access' , work=The Guardian citation , page= , passage=But Myler and Crone told the committee in September that they had made Murdoch aware at the 10 June 2008 meeting that hacking was not restricted to a single journalist. They claimed this was the reason Murdoch agreed to settle the Taylor's case. James Murdoch subsequently wrote to the committee to deny this. }}
  • To disallow
  • to refuse to give or grant something to someone
  • My father denied me a good education.
  • * J. Edwards
  • To some men, it is more agreeable to deny a vicious inclination, than to gratify it.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2008 , date=April 12 , author= , title=Mother denied daughter's organs , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=A mother who urgently needs a kidney transplant has branded the system which denied her the organs of her dying daughter as "ridiculous".}}
  • (sports) To prevent from scoring.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=November 3 , author=Chris Bevan , title=Rubin Kazan 1 - 0 Tottenham , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Another Karadeniz cross led to Cudicini's first save of the night, with the Spurs keeper making up for a weak punch by brilliantly pushing away Christian Noboa's snap-shot.
    Two more top-class stops followed quickly afterwards, first from Natcho's rasping shot which was heading into the top corner, and then to deny Ryazantsev at his near post.}}
  • To disclaim connection with, responsibility for, etc.; to refuse to acknowledge; to disown; to abjure; to disavow.
  • * Bancroft
  • the falsehood of denying his opinion
  • * Keble
  • thou thrice denied , yet thrice beloved
  • (obsolete) To refuse (to do or accept something).
  • * Shakespeare
  • if you deny to dance

    Usage notes

    * This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing) . See

    Synonyms

    (assert something is not true) gainsay, contradict, withsay

    Antonyms

    (not allow) allow (assert something is true) confirm, affirm

    Derived terms

    * deniability * denier